The Vile Village

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**Title** **The Vile Village**

Author	Lemony Snicket (pen name of Daniel Handler)
Illustrator	Brett Helquist
Cover artist	Brett Helquist
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	A Series of Unfortunate Events
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	HarperCollins
Released	May 2001
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages	256
ISBN	ISBN
Preceded by	The Ersatz Elevator
Followed by	The Hostile Hospital

The Vile Village is the seventh novel in the book series A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket.

1 Plot summary
2 Literary allusions
3 Plot notes
4 Cover images

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The book begins when the Baudelaires are in Mr. Poe's office, looking at The Daily Punctilio (a poorly written newspaper full of lies about the Quagmires and Count Olaf). Mr. Poe gives a brochure to the Baudelaire orphans, because a new program allows an entire village to serve as guardian. The children naturally choose V.F.D., an acronym which the two Quagmire triplets discovered is part of a terrible secret somehow related to Count Olaf.

The children depart for the unknown V.F.D. by bus. Unfortunately, the stop for V.F.D. is several miles ahead, so the children have to walk a long way, until they reach the city, which is covered in crows. They enter the town hall and become acquainted with the Council of Elders, who proclaim that they will do all the chores for the entire village. Beginning tomorrow, they are responsible for anything that anyone asks them to do. They also meet Officer Lucciana, the new head of police. The children then are sent to live with Hector, the handyman who will feed them, clothe them, and make sure they do all the chores like cleaning the new Fowl Fountain, and he is also responsible for teaching them all of the rules of V.F.D, so they won't do any more terrible things. They also learn that the crows stay downtown in the morning, uptown at afternoon, and at Nevermore Tree at night.

The Baudelaires learn that V.F.D. stands for the Village of Fowl Devotees. The Baudelaires get their first perspective on Hector's house, the barn, and the Nevermore Tree. Hector shows the Baudelaires the following couplet, which he says was found at the base of Nevermore Tree.

"For sapphires we are held in here, Only you can end our fear"

The Baudelaires begin to trust Hector. They discuss the Quagmires and consider the fact that they might be somehow sending them pleas for help in those poems. They also discover a new poem, though the tree is kept under surveillance the whole night.

The Baudelaires do the chores, while thinking about the latest poem that dropped.

Until dawn comes we cannot speak, No words can come from this sad beak.

They think really hard until one of the members of the Council of Elders comes and reports that Count Olaf has been captured. They are to report immediately to the Town Hall. The Baudelaires discover that it is not Count Olaf who has been captured, but instead, a man named Jacques - a man who has one eyebrow and a tattoo of an eye on his ankle. Though the children insist that he is innocent, no one listens to the children. The next day he is to be burned at stake.

That night the Baudelaires construct a plan. Sunny keeps watch at Nevermore Tree to see where the poems are coming from. Klaus reads up on the rules of V.F.D. and sees if a rule can get Jacques out of trouble. And Violet helps construct the hot-air balloon device, for it will be a useful escape device if Count Olaf comes after them.

Violet goes through the machine, Sunny discovers that the crows are delivering the poems, and Klaus discovers that a rule allows the accused to make a speech explaining himself. He also finds out that mob psychology can make people demand Jacques' freedom. If a few people say something, mob psychology can make everyone demand the same thing. Sunny also discovers a verse that night:

The first thing you read contains the clue, An initial way to speak to you.

When the children run to the uptown jail where Jacques is being held, they learn that he has been murdered. Detective Dupin (the detective investigating the crime) walks out and it is revealed that he is Count Olaf in disguise. Detective Dupin accuses the Baudelaires as murdering Count Olaf. He claims that he has Violet's hair ribbon, Klaus's glasses and Sunny's teeth mark is on the body. The people ignore the fact that the orphans have solid alibis and the children are quickly locked up inside the Deluxe Cell and told by Count Olaf that one of them will make a great escape before the burning and he gives them a choice of who wants to live.

Klaus realizes that it is his 13th birthday. At that time Officer Lucianna comes in and brings them water and bread. Violet, after some hard thinking thinks up a way to escape. Violet explains that the bricks of the wall can be made soft. By tilting the bench and pouring the water onto the bread, the bread will act like a sponge. They squeeze the bread at the top of the tilted bench, and it runs down the bench, runs down the wall and into the bread placed at the bottom. They do this all night and into the morning. Hector comes and tells them that if they break out, he has the hot-air balloon ready. He also gives them the daily couplet:

"Inside these letters the eye will see, Nearby are your friends and V.F.D."

They break free of the jail using a battering ram that is really a wooden bench, and reread the poems.

For sapphires we are held in here.

Only you can end our fear.

Until dawn comes we cannot speak.

No words can come from this sad beak.

The first thing you read contains the clue.

An initial way to speak to you.

Inside these letters the eye will see.

Nearby are your friends and V.F.D.

They figure out that sapphires refer to the Quagmires. They know that they are uptown, since it says they cannot speak until dawn, as the crows stay uptown at morning. And finally they figure out that the initial one to speak to them is not V.F.D., but the first letter in each verse. It spells out FOUNTAIN. They rush over to Fowl Fountain and manage to open the beak, revealing the damp Quagmires.

At this point they must run to Hector's. The Quagmires explain that Count Olaf locked them in the tower of his house. Then he had his associates build the fountain. The Quagmires tied the couplet to the crows feet every morning. They try to tell the Baudelaires that the man who died - Jacques Snicket - is the brother of Lemony Snicket, but people see them and they must run. They reach Hector's and the Quagmires get up in the balloon. Then Officer Lucianna comes with a harpoon gun and shoots the rope so the Baudelaires can't get up. The Quagmires throw their notebooks down to the orphans, but they are hit with a harpoon along with a crow. Then Detective Dupin (accidentally) reveals himself as Count Olaf by removing his sunglasses. The book ends with Count Olaf (unmasked) riding away on a motorcycle with Officer Lucianna (Esmé Squalor) chasing. Sunny gets up and walks for the first time while they try to get as many of the pages as possible. Although the citizens are still convinced of the children's guilt, a crow was injured by Esme's harpoon gun and must be tended to first. The Baudalaires decide to run away from the police.

[edit] Literary allusions

The Nevermore tree is most likely in reference to Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven', in which the Raven, a relative of the Crow, repeats the word 'Nevermore'.

Also, the name that Olaf uses, Detective Dupin, may be a reference to French poet Jacques Dupin (which would also lend a name to Jacques Snicket). It may also refer to C. Auguste Dupin, a fictional detective character created by Edgar Allen Poe.